The D.A. Breaks an Egg

25

Selby looked at his watch, made a mental calculation. “We can’t make it, Rex. We’ll have to telephone.”

Brandon slowed the car. “Okay, what do we do?”

Selby said, “The next public phone we see rush through a call to Bert Hardwick at the Los Angeles sheriff’s office. Tell him to pick up Barton Mosher. Tell him not to make any charge unless he has to, but, in case he has to, to charge him with the murder of Rose Furman. And just to make a good job, charge him with the murder of Carl Remerton.”

Brandon glanced sidelong at Selby to see whether the district attorney meant what he said, or was merely putting on an act for the benefit of Daphne Arcola. Then, spying the sign of a pay phone ahead, he abruptly braked the car.

While Brandon was phoning, Selby settled himself in the cushions of the car, filled his pipe.

Daphne Arcola said, “You don’t have to be so tough. Perhaps if you’d act a little more human you might find there was more percentage in it.”

Selby turned toward her, started to say something, then suddenly reached for the siren button as he saw Sylvia Martin’s light press car rocketing along, trying to make speed.

At the sound of the siren she risked a sidelong glance, then threw on brakes, brought the car to a weaving stop.

“Well, well, the press,” Daphne Arcola said, as Sylvia Martin parked the car and came racing back. “I presume this is entirely accidental.”

Sylvia ran up to the county car. “Oh, Doug, I’m so glad to see you I could kiss you. Old A. B. C. headed for Los Angeles and he took...” She suddenly broke off as she saw Daphne Arcola.

“Hop in, Sylvia,” Selby invited. “Get in the back seat. Your car should be all right there.”

She opened the door on the rear, jumped in.

“I thought we lacked something,” Daphne said sarcastically. “Now we’re all fixed, friendly press, everything!”

Brandon returned to the car, grinning. “I got Hardwick himself, Doug. You know what’ll happen. He’ll really go to town.”

“That’s fine,” Selby said. “It was a break getting Hardwick personally. Now we can relax. Old A. B. C. will walk right into the trap.”

“Better tell me a few things,” Brandon said, then catching sight of Sylvia Martin, “Why, hello, Sylvia. How did you get here — fly?”

“Darn near,” she said.

“Good to see you. Wish you’d arrived sooner. Go on, Doug, just what did happen?”

Daphne Arcola missed the sidelong glance the sheriff gave the district attorney.

“We can deduce what happened now, Rex,” Selby said. “Carl Remerton went to Windrift, Montana. He was a liberal spender. I wouldn’t doubt if perhaps old A. B. Carr has a finger in the pie in Mosher’s gambling outfit up there, and I presume you, Daphne, were a professional come-on.”

“Save your breath,” she said acidly. “Don’t waste it asking me questions.”

“That’s what must have happened,” Selby said. “Daphne took Carl Remerton in tow. She saw that he had plenty of action and that he kept going to Barton Mosher’s place. Mosher saw that he lost plenty. Then Remerton became suspicious and they had to get rid of him.”

Selby stole a swift glance at Daphne Arcola.

“Or,” he went on, “something happened and they decided to give him knockout drops and that finished his heart.

“In the meantime, his sister hired a detective to find out what had happened. That really bothered Mosher. The fat was in the fire.

“Now notice a peculiar coincidence. One of those things that isn’t entirely a coincidence because with a man who has as much practice as old A. B. Carr there are undoubtedly cases which dovetail, and dates which coincide time after time. But Carl Remerton met his death on July twenty-ninth. Daphne Arcola was mixed up in that death, and so was Barton Mosher. They appealed to Carr when Rose Furman got on the job. Then Moana Lennox came to Carr and wanted a man freed on a hit-and-run charge. He was really innocent and Moana knew it but couldn’t testify. The date was the twenty-ninth of July. Obviously, if Carr could give Daphne Arcola an alibi by showing that she was in California on the evening of the twenty-ninth, she could hardly have been administering knockout drops to Carl Remerton on that same date in Windrift, Montana.

“Now, you can piece together all of the things that Carr did. He convinced Moana that, as her benefactor, he’d get someone to take her place as an alibi witness. If he had offered to do this for nothing, it would have made her feel that there was something phony about the deal, and that Carr had an ax to grind. So Carr got her to part with something of value. All that she had was the antique jewelry. It wasn’t anything that Carr would ordinarily have bothered with. Carr didn’t even plan to dispose of it. He simply intended to keep it so as to make his activities appear regular so far as Moana was concerned.”

“Go on, Doug,” Brandon said. “You’re doing fine.”

“Well, there you have the entire story,” Selby went on. “You’ll remember, Rex, that when we first started figuring the thing we felt that Carr wanted to get an alibi for someone or something. Then it looked as though we were wrong and he was giving someone an alibi. But Carr was up to his old tricks.”

“And you think Carr killed Rose Furman?”

Selby said, “Carr doesn’t resort to murder. He isn’t that crude, but I wouldn’t put it at all past Carr to have suggested to Mosher that as long as Rose Furman was on the job he was bound to end up behind the eight ball sooner or later.”

“And where does that leave this girl?” Brandon asked, motioning his head toward Daphne Arcola.

“Probably,” Selby said, “she’s the one who put the knockout drops in the drink, or whatever it was. We’ll have to get an order exhuming the body and have a delicate chemical analysis made. But my best guess is Carl Remerton was murdered, either deliberately, or killed accidentally, in the process of seeing that he was kept quiet when he found out that he’d been trimmed and started to make a complaint.

“I’m not so certain that we can definitely prove our case against Mosher, but we certainly have the goods on this girl — or will have after we go into the question of Remerton’s death — and people of Mosher’s type are always rats. They’ll grab at straws. That’s what Carr was so intent upon doing. He was going to save his own skin while he still had a chance. He was going to get in touch with Mosher and... well, it’s a two to one bet, Rex, that they were going to fix things up so that Mosher turned state’s evidence and got off scot-free, and this girl got the works. That’s Mosher’s type.”

Selby stole a sidelong glance at Daphne Arcola’s profile, then went on. “And it’s a dirty shame in a way, because girls like Daphne get by on their beauty and youth. You know what happens after a woman has served a term in prison, even if it’s only a five-year term. She comes out looking like an old hag. There’s nothing left for her except jobs of floor scrubbing and they’re lucky to get those. Inside of another five years they have the figure of a sack of potatoes and...”

“Stop it!” Daphne Arcola screamed at him.

Selby looked at her in surprise. “What’s wrong, Daphne, can’t you take it?”

“Of course I can’t take it. And neither could any other woman. But I’m beginning to realize a lot of things now. You say Mosher would make a deal to turn state’s evidence and get off scot-free?”

Selby nodded.

“Well,” she said, “how about beating him to it? If you want a witness, I’ll make you a proposition.”

Selby said, “I can’t guarantee anything, but we’d use our influence with the grand jury, if the facts warrant it.”

She said, “Well, you seem to know pretty much what happened. The only thing you have wrong is my part.

“I was a come-on girl all right and I saw that Carl Remerton got taken to the cleaners. He was a good sport and a free spender, but, believe me, when he thought he’d been gypped, he really was a fighting fool.

“That’s where Mosher made his mistake. He underestimated Remerton, but I wasn’t the one who gave him the doped drink. I was instructed to get him in touch with Mosher that night. In other words, to put him on the spot. I thought it was just another gambling deal. Then I was instructed to leave him. I knew something was fishy then. The next I knew he was supposed to have died of heart failure while he was driving his automobile. Naturally, I kept my own counsel.

“Then Mosher told me this woman detective was on the job, that the man’s sister was making trouble, that it looked as though I might be framed with having given him knockout drops, or something. So then I suggested we come to Madison City and get in touch with A. B. Carr. My friend, Babe Harlan, married Carr, and had told me all about him... and got herself a pretty soft berth.

“I wrote Carr. He wired he’d meet me. I called Carr’s house and tried to talk with his wife. I didn’t let her know that I had any business with old A. B. C. I left a message knowing that that would give A. B. C. his cue.

“Well, Carr called me and told me to call Moana Lennox, to meet her, and be at the park at a certain time. We were to meet him there.

“We got to the park and... well, I found Rose Furman’s body. Then suddenly I realized that instead of providing me with an alibi, they had put me right in the middle of a murder rap. By that time there was nothing I could do.

“But I know what I’m going to do now. I’m going to sing my way out of it.”

“Did Carr ever say anything that led you to believe he knew about the murder?”

She said, “Mosher stuck the knife in her. We all knew that, but Carr never said anything.”

Selby said, “Well, Rex, I guess we have our murder case solved, but pinning anything on old A. B. C. depends on whether Mosher decides to sit tight.”

“Mosher,” she said positively, “will do whatever A. B. C. tells him.”

“Old A. B. C. may not have a chance to tell him anything — for a while,” Selby said.

Sylvia Martin spoke up timidly from the back seat. “Could you put me out at the nearest pay telephone sign you see? I’ll get home somehow, and I simply have to telephone The Clarion. I think the publisher would like to get out an extra that would hit the streets at the same time as The Blade goes on sale.”

Rex Brandon thought that over, a slow grin spread over his features. “Now that’s an idea, Sylvia.”

Brandon suddenly swerved the car and applied brakes. “Here’s a phone, Sylvia.”

Selby said, “When you’ve phoned in your story, go back out to where you left your car and wait for me. I’ll ride back with you, if you want a passenger.”

She squeezed his hand. The car stopped. Selby held the door open for her.

“Okay, Doug, see you later,” she said. “Good-by, and thanks — everyone.”

“Fall dead,” Daphne Arcola snapped.